In the last few days we have been planning the future of Roboplant and we would love to share with you our new game roadmap - It was about time, some may say!
We have a list of nice things we want to add to Roboplant and a long road ahead, but we will get there! We expect to take another year to complete all the planned features (and suggested ones). Then we will do the full release both on PC and Consoles.
The roadmap shows only the main features and does not consider the secondary ones. Don't worry, don't worry...they will be added slowly over time - we know that many of you want a tool to move structures, we didn't forget! If you think something is missing from the list below, please let us know. Features are not set in stone and your feedback is important to shape Roboplant and its future plans.
But let’s start!
1. New planet
We are working on a very cold planet where you can settle down and start your factory. It looks very snowy! We plan to release it this December - such a coincidence!!!
2. Random events
Every planet has its own risks, so it is better if you keep your eyes peeled. What if a heatwave hits planet Maylo? You must roll up your sleeves and help your workers to keep the factory in perfect conditions.
3. More intriguing quests
The current quest system is limited to simple quests, but we want to give you more options, more things to do, and more uniqueness for each planet.
4. Reputation Tree and new contracts
Your reputation with either the big or the small companies will have a much more important role: More advanced contracts and unique perks for each group.
5. More production tools
We plan to add more advanced production machines that can help you speed up the production process.
6. Financial tools
There may be a time when you need new ways to support your business. Loans and other forms of investments could help you out. Furthermore, it could be useful to find ways to optimize your costs.
7. A new planet
A third and last planet where you can build your factory. It will have a unique environment, events and decorations.
8. Workers' ability to learn new skills
Wouldn't it be better if you could help your workers grow instead of having to fire them and hire new ones? You’ll be able to do that and much more!
9. Crazy scientist
The ace in our sleeve! Wouldn't it be amazing if you could combine the best characteristics of each plant and create something unique?
I know, we didn’t go too much into detail! If we spoil all the surprises, where is the fun?
We hope you are as hyped as we are about these features. Join us, and help us shape Roboplant's future!
See you soon!
Devblog - Summary October 2022
Hello everyone!
We are getting so close to the Early Access release and the team is frantically adding the latest features and fixing bugs. Just to give you a hint, in October we fixed 114 bugs 🤣
We’ll talk more about Early Access and the roadmap on the day of the release. For now, let’s talk about what happened in the last month. But of course, if you have questions or suggestions or just want to chat you can join us on any social, link at the bottom of the article.
So, let’s start!
New advanced production machine
Now you’ll be able to research and unlock the Horizontal Drip System, a more advanced machine compared to the Wick System. It will be pretty handy to grow more efficiently small plants. And also, it looks pretty cool when you are growing some tasty strawberries.
A bit of technicality: it uses pumps to drip regularly the nutrient solution directly onto the roots of your plants.
More ways for your workers to relax
When your workers are not busy they’ll go and take a moment for themselves to recharge, repair, and relax. The standard machines Roboplant Industries are a bit inefficient in helping the workers do such things. That is why you can unlock more powerful tools for them to use.
Who doesn’t want to play some BebBop against an AI with a very strong mechanical arm?
Save the Earth mission
In Roboplant you have two ways to play the game: doing challenges or the story mode (which could also be considered the sandbox mode!). Challenges will give you a specific goal in a limited amount of time forcing you to make hard choices, so stressful! Story mode instead will allow you to fulfill your mission to save the Earth without any time limit, allowing you to play for as much as you want. This mode will also evolve over the coming months with more things to do (but I’ll stop here, no spoilers!!!).
Lesson learned from Steam Fest Demo
During the Steam Fest in October, we got really lucky to have some amazing feedback from you. That helped us work on improving Roboplant and will help us for a long time since the list of suggestions is huge!!!!
One of the biggest things that were not working was some of the panels, they were not clear. Please let us know if the new ones are more clear!
Steam Achievements, can you beat them all?
34 achievements, can you get them all? Some are cruel and won’t be that easy to beat! Also, we will constantly add more while we implement new features so be ready to be challenged again.
What is next?
I’ll see you again in 10 days, I told you, no spoilers 😁
If you’d like more details or just want to chat with us, please join us on Discord or subscribe to the newsletter.
Here you can see more about us: linktr.ee/roboplant
Thank you very much for your time and see you soon!
Devblog - Summary September 2022
Hello everyone!
We hope you had a nice October. We spent our days working on the demo of Roboplant to get it ready in time for the Steam Next Fest and working on some nice new cool features for the early access release coming up on the 10th of November (Yeah!!).
Here is a nice sneak peek of the work done:
New production machines
We introduced two new production machines, the first is an alternative to the available seeder and the second one an advanced version of the packager.
The new vertical seeder, as the name suggests, develops vertically with three growing areas, taking less space and allowing to build several next to each other. It won’t yield the same amount of seedlings but it can be pretty handy when working in small areas.
The advance packager on the other hand provides an improvement over the starting packager and for that reason will need to be researched. It requires less manual work and therefore can do double the amount of the first packager at the same time. A pretty useful machine once to optimize your production and increase the yield per hour.
The demo is out!
We release the demo on Steam so that everybody can have a try and see if Roboplant is something liked, the last thing we want is someone who buys the game and doesn’t like it.
The demo gives the chance to experience the challenge mode where you are faced with a task that needs to be completed in a limited time. You won’t be able to play the story mode with the quests, nor unlock all the research in the tech three, for that, you’ll have to wait until the full game :D.
In the demo you’ll find a feedback form, that will allow you to send some feedback about the game and bugs if you encounter any. You’ll be able to see what you submitted and what others have sent in the forum available at forum.rebelpug.com (there is a bit of a delay from the time you submit to when is published since we have to do it manually). Please let us know what you think about Roboplant and help us to make it better!
Translated the game into multiple languages (Love the japanese writing)
We wanted to make the game accessible to everybody so we localized it in 11 different languages, we know we won’t be able to cover every language but that would have been too difficult to achieve. Hopefully, the translation is done properly and everything is clear, even though we are still working out some UI issues related to the length of the text for each language. Who knew that writing the same thing in different languages could change soo much in the space occupied?
Linux and macOS Support
Our goal is to make the game playable both on Linux (and SteamDeck) and on macOS, for the demo we didn’t make it in the time since it requires some extra work to make it playable in those OS but we do plan to cover those OS as soon as possible (in less than 6 months, but hopefully much sooner).
Events coming up
As you may read from other articles we published we will be in the Steam Next Fest from tomorrow, with two live streams planned on the 3rd and the 7th at 1 pm PST, come and join us for a chat while we play Roboplant.
What is next?
And that's it for now! For October we plan to work on adding another production machine, some nice new structures where your workers can chill, and completing the first step in the story mode.
If you’d like more details or just want to chat with us, please join us on Discord or subscribe to the newsletter.
Thank you very much for your time and see you again in a month or so!
Let's play Roboplant together on the 7th of October at 1pm PDT time
Join us playing Roboplant live on the 7th of October at 1pm PDT time. You'll be able to see us fighting to complete some challenges and meanwhile we will be up for a chat ːsteamhappyː
See you soon!
Let's play Roboplant together on the 3th of October at 1pm PDT
Join us playing Roboplant live on the 3th of October at 1pm PDT. You'll be able to see us fighting to complete some challenges and meanwhile we will be up for a chat ːsteamhappyː
See you soon!
Devblog - Summary August 2022
Hello everyone!
It’s now almost September, the summer is over, and we’ve got enough sun and sea that we’re back to business relaxed and burnt. (Actually, we really never left, working on this project is way more fun!)
This month's recap is full of new, cute and in-depth features! Let’s explore them together:
More fruits and vegetables to grow
Plants! It’s been a while since we talked about plants, what you can grow, and what you can do about them. We added a little bit of depth on how you should handle temperature and humidity when growing both terrestrial and alien plants.
For example, one of the new plants we added, the Strawberry plant, needs a warm temperature and a high humidity level to be able to grow properly! It grows pretty slowly but gives a good income when sold.
And this is the new plant you can grow, the Kinano! It grows well in the same conditions as strawberries. Cute, pastel and sells at a very high price! But it also requires a lot of work and research to be able to grow!
Be careful to keep all the differences in mind or else you can lose a lot of money and time when building an environment for all of them!
Beebop has a new look!
This one is probably the biggest thing we worked on this month, giving Beebop a soul. Before, he was a simple robot working all day long, without the chance to express himself when something was off. Now, Beebop has a nice pair of eyes!
But he can also get very upset if not treated well!
But that’s not all, there’s not one simple plain Beebop anymore, now he can have experience in certain fields! And this can be really handy if you need to improve the efficiency of your factory.
Beebop Farmers will surely perform better in growing plants than in researching, that is clearly a job they would prefer to leave to their fellow colleagues' Engineers, and Biologists.
But let’s not forget about our loyal Builders, who are working constantly to make sure all is up and working properly!
But keep an eye on their skill level, as the more skilled they are when hired, and more money they will require to work for you! Quality comes at a price 😉
Challenges to make you sweat
Besides the main story mode, we added challenges for you to complete. They won't be easy to finish but will provide plenty of entertainment and fun for you. To complete a challenge you'll have to satisfy certain criteria while not being able to unlock and use certain structures and features.
Are you going to be able to deliver 100 packaged lettuce and strawberries before the time runs out?
The Steam Fest demo is getting ready
As the title says we will be at the next Steam Fest with a demo of Roboplant, we are really thrilled to be there! We are looking forward to hear your feedback on the game and build a better game on top of that. We are sure that with your suggestions and comments we will be able to make Roboplant much better!
You'll be able to play the challenges and explore some of the features available in Roboplant. And don't worry if English is not your main language (it isn't ours either!), we will localize the game in 11 different languages so we should be able to cover as much as we can.
What is next?
And that's it for now! For September, besides working on the demo, we are planning to go deeper into the story mode and also introduce events to keep you always on your toe.
If you’d like more details or just want to chat with us, please join us on Discord or subscribe to the newsletter.
Thank you very much for your time and see you again in a month or so!
Devblog - Summary July 2022
Hello everyone,
Wow, August is already around the corner and we haven't even noticed! Maybe it's because we had a lot of fun integrating new features into the game or because you know, summer always goes by too fast. Nevertheless, it's time to stop for a moment and do a little recap on what's new in the game.
A new way to make profit
Drum roll…🥁🥁 We have a new exciting feature in the game! To enable you to earn more money and increase your reputation as a company, we have decided to add a contract section to the game. In this section, you can choose a contract to accept and then go on to fulfil it by growing the required plants and quantities. Contracts are offered by large companies or small groups, have varying degrees of difficulty and can be accessed according to your company reputation.
If you succeed in fulfilling the contract in the allotted time, you have the chance to earn money and also increase your reputation. If, on the other hand, you fail, then you will lose money from your earnings. Ready for an exciting challenge? 🔥
New room, doors and corridors layouts!
We spent the past two weeks designing and creating new layouts for our rooms, doors and corridors because one of the feedback we received in the past was that rooms were not enough captivating. In addition, the door was too narrow and it often happened that our Beebops got stuck. For these reasons, we decided to give the door an arched shape - certainly more in keeping with the general style of the game - change the corridors and design new rooms with more original and dynamic shapes.
We came up with an L-shaped room and a T-shaped one, an “almost” oval room and an “almost” hexagonal one. In short, we had a lot of fun! The rooms will be added slowly within the game (we are still working on refining and optimising the textures) but we are already starting to see a big improvement in terms of base building possibilities.
Keep track of your expenses
We wanted to give you a tool to keep track of the expenses in your business and to see where you can reduce costs and improve profits. In this panel you’ll be able to see everything splitted by category so you’ll have a clear understanding of it.
But there is more, when we play we always wonder if the number of workers is optimized. Now you can check if there are too many tasks that need to be done. And if so, you’ll need some extra workers.
We joined an event and we are going to join one more!
In July, we had the fantastic opportunity to participate in the #colorsofindie competition organised by Mooneye Studios. We were selected among the finalists and had the chance to chat with the organisers of the event who liked the game and the idea! Unfortunately we didn't make the podium but it was still very interesting to participate and learn about other beautiful indie games.
In addition, as we are writing this blog article, we are working on getting the game ready for another very important event: #TinyTeams2022. The latter celebrates indie games created by small studios of up to 5 people - our studio only has 3... actually 3 and a half if you count our little mascot Leia! So, we look forward to seeing you all from 1 to 8 August on the Yogscast Game Twitch channel.
And that's it for the month of July! For August, however, we are planning to introduce two new plants into the game, one terrestrial and one alien, add more rooms and improve the contract section.
If you’d like more details or just want to chat with us, please join us on Discord. Here you can see more about us: linktr.ee/roboplant
Thank you very much for your time and see you again in a month or so!
Devblog - Summary June 2022
Hello everyone,
June has passed by and, as usual, we come by bringing you some updates on what we have been working on for the past month. We hope you enjoy it and as usual, if you have any suggestions or feedback please don’t hesitate to contact us!
Better manage your energy and water supply
Farming requires a constant supply of energy and water, otherwise, you would run the risk of losing your plants. So far you had to order it constantly from the store. Now you’ll be able to research additional storage containers and producers to make your life much easier and less stressful.
(Solar panels will follow the sun, but it took some trial and error to get there)
You’ll be able to unlock solar panels to produce some energy during the day and water harvesters that can give you a small supply of water. They won’t probably be enough to fully cover your needs, but at least you’ll reduce your external dependency and optimize your costs. Plus the solar panel looks pretty cool following the sun 😄.
We also added a new utility panel so that you can more efficiently manage your utilities. You can see current statistics, manage current orders, and handle your producers.
A little help to begin your adventure
Starting off for the first time could be tricky. With many things to discover and to know, we thought an interactive tutorial would be the best, to begin with. It will guide you through the first steps to having a factory up and running. It won’t tell you everything. There will still be plenty of things for you to discover on your own, don’t worry!
(We still need to sort a bit more the content and the style but it should do the trick!)
Improving the performance of the game
We did some stress tests on Roboplant to see how many workers you could handle at the same time and for our evil goals (billionsssss of robots 🤖!!!) the performances were not good enough. We then implemented different techniques to reduce the impact on the hardware of the PC and we happily reached a first milestone in improving them.
Technically speaking: we started using CPU instancing to manage the plants growing so that they would still look amazing but a bit less demanding and also we worked on making more advantages of the batching offered by the game engine combining meshes and textures.
We will constantly work to make sure the game will run smoothly on as many PCs as possible. And hopefully, with your help in the coming months, we will be able to test the game on so many types of hardware and keep improving from there.
This is all for June! We hope you liked what you read. For July we are planning to redo the rooms to give them more character and make them unique based on their purpose. Furthermore, we will start working on the ability to receive and fulfill work contracts so that you can grow your business more.
If you fancy knowing more details or just want to have a chat with us please join us on Discord. Here you can see more about us: linktr.ee/roboplant See you soon!
Devblog - Summary May 2022
Hello everyone,
Another month has passed and there are some nice new updates to Roboplant that hopefully, you’ll enjoy once the game gets released in January. Feel free to drop us a message if you have any feedback on what is about to follow, any suggestion is welcome!
A new production machine to handle large fruit plants
In April we introduced the deepwater system, a machine to help grow large quantities of small plants, and in May we needed something for larger plants, so we introduced the EBB system. It doesn’t have a lot of growing slots so you won’t be able to make a large number of plants at the same time but is currently the only machine that can handle heavy plants that require a good support system.
And of course, with the introduction of the EBB, we also added a new plant, the “alien melon” (yes we know, we need better names!). This juicy fruit will take ages to grow but once it does it will provide a high yield and good money.
Decorating your factory is also about efficiency
We improved the current mood system for the workers to make it more clear and more fun. Each room will have a mood value that will be negatively affected by the machines (production, research, leisure) and positively affected by the decorations. Having a negative mood in a room is not something you should look for because workers will need to take more breaks, on the other hand with a positive mood you'll have a nice efficiency boost!
We added multiple decorations, some specific for some room types and some generics. You can still place them in different types of rooms but won’t give the same nice effect you would get in the proper room type.
Fixing bugs and getting the game ready for events
In May we had to do a lot of PR that hopefully will help us show off Roboplant in multiple events across the next 6 months and this means a lot of bug fixing to do. Luckily we have a very precise tester that spotted many things to improve that kept us busy for a bit. We’ll keep everyone updated on incoming events where Roboplant can be seen and who knows, maybe even tried.
This is all for May, we hope it was interesting reading. In June we are planning to finish off new decorations, work on adding new ways to manage your energy and water, and finally do some technical work to improve the game performances.
If you fancy knowing more details or just want to have a chat with us please join us on Discord. Here you can see more about us: linktr.ee/roboplant
